For the past fortnight we have had Philip with us on work experience. He has written this post on what he found about his Jones ancestors by using the resources we have in the Athenaeum and our partner departments, the North Devon Record Office and the Local Studies Library…Barum Athena
During the previous two weeks, I have studied my family’s past to find out more about them as I didn’t know very much. Using resources such as Ancestry and the North Devon Journal Index, I traced back through my mother’s side of the family and managed to get as far back as the nineteenth century! I found out that my grandmother’s original husband, Edward T Jago, was the son of an Ida Gammon and a Leonard Stanley Jago. To find out the names of his parents, I checked through old issues of the North Devon Journal and found a column that publicly announced his death, though it wasn’t very helpful as there was no mention of his parents. Because of this, I had to find Ida’s parents instead. Fortunately, I had more luck with them and found that her parents were William Henry Gammon and Elsie Jones. Confusingly, William’s father was also called William and even stranger, Elsie’s father was called William Henry Jones! As I could not find out who was married to William Gammon, I decided to track through Elsie’s side of the family and found that William Henry Jones was married to a Clara Jane Sexon. It was here that tracing further back became almost impossible as both William and Clara were very difficult to trace. However, I did find that the two of them had eleven children in total!
One thing bothered me though. In each birth record, the parents’ home had been listed differently. Some of them stated that the couple lived in Swimbridge, and some of them stated that they lived in Landkey! Luckily enough, I found that William Jones worked as a Miller at Newland Corn Mill. This explained why the said that they lived in Landkey and Swimbridge on the various registered births. Newland Corn Mill was considered to be in Swimbridge but was really in Landkey; I find it very confusing.
Philip used several resources from the North Devon Athenaeum, North Devon Record Office and Barnstaple Local Studies Library, including online sources and original documents. For more information about what each department holds please visit the Catalogue page on our website…Barum Athena
One Reply to “The Jones Connection”